Louis Béroud | An elegantly dressed copyist at the Louvre, 1898

Copying was an essential part of any 19th century artist’s education and the Musée du Louvre - unlike most academies and ateliers - was open to both men and women who studied its many masterpieces.

Louis Béroud was a regular copyist at the Louvre; indeed, in August 1911, it was Béroud who alerted authorities that Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa was missing (the painting, stolen by Vincenzo Peruggia, was returned two years later).

Béroud so relished the practice of copying works in the museum's collection, that he made at least twenty-six compositions of the subject.

Here, a woman in blue paints at an easel positioned in front of Leonardo’s monumental painting of the so-called Virgin of the Rocks.

Sitting on a stool with a protective tarp beneath her, she raises her right arm, touching her paintbrush to the surface of the canvas, her left hand resting on her hip, and a ready rag spills out of the box of supplies open on a stool to her left.

Almost all of the copyists in Béroud’s scenes are women who enjoyed access to the museum as amateur painters. | © Sotheby's

Louis Béroud | An elegantly dressed copyist at the Louvre, 1898 | Sotheby's

Rembrandt | Adoration of the Magi, 1632

The Adoration of the Magi (anglicized from the Matthean Vulgate Latin section title: A Magis adoratur) is the name traditionally given to the subject in the Nativity of Jesus in art in which the three Magi, represented as kings, especially in the West, having found Jesus by following a star, lay before him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and worship him.

Leonardo da Vinci | Nativity paintings

Giorgio Vasari🎨, in the enlarged edition of Lives of the Artists (1568) introduced his chapter on Leonardo with the following words:

"In the normal course of events many men and women are born with remarkable talents; but occasionally, in a way that transcends nature, a single person is marvellously endowed by Heaven with beauty, grace and talent in such abundance that he leaves other men far behind, all his actio ns seem inspired and indeed everything he does clearly comes from God rather than from human skill".

André Derain | Still life

André Derain (1880-1954), French painter, sculptor, printmaker and designer - was one of the principal Fauvists.

Derain studied painting in Paris at the Académie Carriere from 1898-1899.

He developed his early style in association with Maurice de Vlaminck, whom he met in 1900, and with Henri Matisse, who had been Derain’s fellow student at the Académie Carriere.

Together with these two painters, Derain was one of the major exponents of Fauvism from 1905-1908.

Fra Angelico | Early Renaissance painter

Fra Angelico, (Italian: “Angelic Brother”) original name Guido di Pietro, also called Fra Giovanni da Fiesole and Beato Angelico (born c. 1400, Vicchio, republic of Florence [Italy] - died Feb. 18, 1455, Rome), Italian painter, one of the greatest 15th-century painters, whose works within the framework of the early Renaissance style embody a serene religious attitude and reflect a strong Classical influence.

A great number of works executed during his career are altarpieces and frescoes created for the church and the priory of San Marco in Florence while he was in residence there.

San Domenico Period

Baptized Guido di Pietro, he appeared in a document of 1417 as a lay painter. Later, between the years 1420-1422, he became a Dominican friar and resided in the priory of San Domenico at Fiesole, there taking the name of Fra Giovanni da Fiesole.

At Fiesole he was probably influenced by the teachings of Giovanni Dominici, the militant leader of the reformed Dominicans; the writings of Dominici defended traditional spirituality against the onslaught of humanism.